Businessman admits bilking farm family out of $615,000

In Luzerne court, Kurt Keiper pleads guilty to theft by deception.

October 22, 2002|By Bob Laylo Of The Morning Call

Check-bouncing businessman Kurt Keiper admitted in Luzerne County Court on Monday that he swindled a farming family out of more than $600,000.

Keiper pleaded guilty to five counts of theft by deception before President Judge Michael Conahan, who scheduled sentencing for Wednesday. The plea came as the case was called for trial, Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney Timothy M. Doherty said.

Keiper, 31, admitted that he persuaded Eugene and Lillian Evans of Dennison Township to write him checks totaling $615,000 by saying he could buy foreign-made tires in large volume at barges and sell them for a huge profit.

The couple, who own Blue Ridge Peat Farms, wrote seven checks to Keiper from Sept. 12, 2001, until Nov. 30, and later pressed him for their money, police said. Keiper gave excuses but eventually admitted a portfolio he showed them was a fake, police said.

As part of his plea, Keiper agreed to repay the Evanses.

"He can run, he can hide, but he is eventually going to have to pay back the money," Doherty said, adding there are other active criminal investigations of Keiper in Luzerne County.

Keiper has pleaded guilty in two other cases. He served the minimum of a nine-to-59-month sentence for giving McCarthy Tires of Wilkes-Barre a bad check for $306,500.

After 12 days of freedom -- most of it spent working for his parents' tire business in East Side -- a Lackawanna County judge on Sept. 27 sentenced Keiper to nine months to three years in state prison for writing an $84,266 bad check to Sandone Tires of Scranton.

Others who say they are victims of Keiper took the law into their own hands.

The owners of Smith Blacktopping in Luzerne County, in a desperate move to recoup $2 million they say Keiper owed them, snatched him from a Carbon County bar and restaurant in January, assaulted him, then released him at a truck stop in Lackawanna County.

Keiper suffered a broken nose, cuts and bruised ribs

Six people have pleaded guilty in that case and have reached plea bargains calling for them to serve sentences ranging from 18 to 36 months in prison to probation.